I already like this better than Smut for Smut.

The Eastern Connecticut Atheist and Freethinker Fellowship is holding a “Science for Bibles” exchange in which anyone can turn in a Bible and get a fantastic science book in return:

The event is being held to honor “The National Day of Reason,” an alternative to the sectarian “National Day of Prayer” also held on May 3rd each year. Anyone who brings a Bible to the event will receive a free copy of one of several scientific publications: Charles Darwin’s “Origin of Species,” Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos,” or Richard Dawkin’s “The Magic of Reality.”

I don’t know how they’re going to keep the atheists away… Hell, my Bible collection is *huge* and I could easily part with some of them for a few good science books. (Note to atheists: Stay away! Christians need these books more than you do!)

Group member Kristin Bales hopes the event will inspire atheists who are afraid to talk about their identity. “Coming out as an atheist in a Christian-dominated society can be a frightening thing,” she explains. “Our group provides a safe place to discuss your ideas without fear of rejection.”

If you’re someone who would genuinely like to trade your holy books for something worthwhile, the event occurs on May 3^rd from 11:00a-3:00p in Putnam, CT at 189 Main Street.

Thomas Lawson recently published the book Letters from an Atheist Nation: Godless Voices of America in 1903. It transcribes articles that were written for the Blue Grass Blade, a freethought newspaper that’s over a century old, articles that answer the question, “Why are you an atheist?”

Check out the trailer:

It’s amazing that our great-grandparents were fighting the good fight over 100 years ago. (Well, not mine… because they were… you know… brown.) In some areas, we’ve made huge strides, but the fact that we’re still debating many of the same things shows we have a long way to go.

In a New Yorker review of T. M. Luhrmann‘s “When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God,” Joan Acocella points out how desperate members of the Vineyard church are to point out their relationship with god… and how every meaningless action seems to be a sign from him:

This casualness carries over to conversations with God. The Vineyarders asked him “for admission to specific colleges, for the healing of specific illness — even, it is true, for specific red convertible cars.” Some Vineyard women had a regular “date night” with Jesus. They would serve a special dinner, set a place for him at the table, chat with him. He guided the Vineyarders every minute of the day. Sarah told Luhrmann how, one day, after a lunch at a restaurant with fellow-parishioners, she was feeling good about herself, whereupon, as she was crossing the parking lot, a bird shat on her blouse. God, she explained to Luhrmann, was giving her a little slap on the wrist for her self-satisfaction.

Bonus points to Acocella for getting the word “shat” into the New Yorker.

She also points out how the author (an anthropologist) compares this group’s religious beliefs to that of an imaginary best friend:

Not surprisingly, Luhrmann compares the Vineyarders’ beliefs to children’s thought processes. She discusses their views in relation to D. W. Winnicott’s theories about transitional objects. For some evangelicals, she says, God is not unlike a stuffed Snoopy.

Cue the religious hordes getting angry. Because it’s always mockery or insults when someone point out the obvious.

(Thanks to thenoisyoyster for the link!)

The American Humanist Association announced yesterday that Humanist Press — their publishing arm since 1995 — would now be the first freethought publisher to put out brand new books in electronic form (for Kindles, Nooks, etc). (Note: Prometheus Books, which also focuses on the freethought community, puts out ebooks as well, but their focus has historically been on the print versions.)

It’s the AHA’s attempt to break into the burgeoning ebook world and it stands to be fairly successful. There aren’t too many publishers for atheist books but there’s an audience out there that’s hungry for them.

Working with e-publishing software from Impelsys, Humanist Press ebooks will take full advantage of the available features, including interactive reader commentary, author videos, and useful web links. Ebooks from Humanist Press will be available at all the major online sites, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Ebooks, and the Apple iBookstore. They will also be available from our own website: www.humanistpress.com.

The first title to be released under HP will be Herb Silverman‘s Candidate Without A Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt. (A hardcover edition of the book will be published simultaneously, courtesy of Pitchstone Publishing.)

Last week, the AHA announced this endeavor at the National Press Club:

There’s another potential upside to this. If AHA can make this work, it means 1) More atheist authors could find exposure for their work and 2) There could be more competition in the atheist publishing world, leading to a more diverse assortment of books for us.

Right now, most of the books for atheists put out by mainstream publishers are all about disproving the existence of god or showing why religion is bad. Think Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens — great books but not a ton of variety. They’re geared toward people who still believe in god, not at those of us who already know better.

With more publishers focused exclusively on our community, and more opportunities to publish books, you may start to see, for example, an uptick in books about raising families without religion, books for children of atheist parents, books about dealing with religious friends/family, etc.

Right now, those books might be out there, but they have a tough time finding an audience — or a publisher. This venture has a lot of potential, so let’s hope it succeeds.

When I wrote I Sold My Soul on Ebay, the Christian publishers had two rules regarding my writing:

1) Every mention of God had to be capitalized. (It didn’t make a difference to me.)

2) You can’t swear. (It wasn’t an issue since I usually don’t, anyway…)

After that, they let me write whatever I wanted and they helped me along the way.

Rachel Held Evans is writing a book for a (different) Christian publisher in which she follows the Bible as literally as possible regarding how to be a good Christian woman. One of the passages deals with her own upbringing and the abstinence movement:

I signed my first abstinence pledge when I was just fifteen. I’d been invited by some friends to a fall youth rally at the First Baptist Church, and in the fellowship hall one night, the youth leader passed around neon blue and pink postcards that included a form letter to God promising to remain sexually abstinent until marriage. We had only a few minutes to add our signatures, and all my friends were signing theirs, so I used the back of my metal chair to scribble my name across the dotted line before marching to the front of the room to pin my promise to God and to my vagina onto a giant corkboard for all to see. The youth leader said he planned to hang the corkboard in the hallway outside the sanctuary so that parents could marvel at the seventy-five abstinence pledges he’d collected that night. It was a pretty cheap way to treat both our bodies and God, come to think of it.

The publishers have a slight problem with that passage.

It contains the word “vagina.” And not in a strictly anatomical way, either, but in a way that suggests it has a purpose outside of post-marriage-baby-making.

Rachel writes on her site:

My editor noted that it would be tough to get this particular reference to “vagina” through the Christian bookstore gatekeepers, so we took it out and replaced it with…sigh… “privates.” (I know, I know.)

The issue, Rachel says, wasn’t with the publishers so much as the fact that certain Christian bookstores wouldn’t carry the book if it contained that word. And that would hurt book sales. So she was tempted to side with her publishers (Thomas Nelson) on this one…

But then she realized that Thomas Nelson had put out some books by male authors and the same rules didn’t seem to apply. Once again, I quote Rachel verbatim:

… in To Own a Dragon, the ever-talented Donald Miller writes, “I felt as though all the men in the world secretly met in some warehouse late at night to talk about man things, to have secret handshakes, to discuss how great it was to have a penis and what an easy thing it was to operate…”

So it’s fine when he writes “penis,” but it’s not ok when she writes “vagina”?

What’s up with that? What do the evangelical book publishers fear will happen? That Christian girls are going to open up Rachel’s book and somehow realize for the first time that — Oh my god! I have a vagina!?

I hope Rachel fights to keep that word in there. Whatever she loses in sales by not having the book appear in certain Christian bookstores, I’m sure she’ll make up in online sales from people who support an author who stands up for women, fights hypocrisy within the Christian world, and has, you know, some integrity.

Several years ago, Greta Christina wrote a post about why atheists are angry that still resonates with a lot of people today.

She has now fleshed out those thoughts and turned it into a wonderful new book, Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Thing That Piss Off the Godless:

I read it a few weeks ago and wasn’t kidding or exaggerating when I offered this blurb:

Greta has done something truly impressive with this book: She explains in a calm, reasonable, and thoughtful way exactly why she’s a pissed-off, angry atheist. She’s not alone, though, and it’s not only other atheists who will agree with her. In fact, I *dare* religious people to read this book and not come away furious at the often awful impact faith has had on the world, even if they don’t believe they’re responsible for it. I may be a “friendly atheist” online, but Greta definitely speaks for me in this book.

Even if you’re an atheist and know damn well why you’re angry, treat yourself to this book. I know, it’s like you’re buying a book designed to frustrate you, but it’ll also inspire you to channel your rage into action. Better yet, tell your religious friends to buy it. They need to understand where we’re coming from.

If Kindle isn’t your thing, the book will be available for the Nook and in print form soon.

Greta, congratulations for doing something monumental and timely — It takes a lot of work to put together a book like this, especially without the help of a publisher or agent. When you’re that talented and savvy, you don’t need either.

Today marks the release of Sam Harris‘ new eBook, Free Will. A couple of exclusive excerpts from the book are below!

I had a chance to read the book a couple of weeks ago. As someone who prefers to avoid most philosophical discussions, I found this book easy to understand and quick to read. I’m in no place to argue for or against his thesis, but Harris definitely leaves you with a lot of food for thought and presents some compelling anecdotes to hammer his points home.

…

After discussing the cases of two criminals:

As sickening as I find their behavior, I have to admit that if I were to trade places with one of these men, atom for atom, I would be him: There is no extra part of me that could decide to see the world differently or to resist the impulse to victimize other people. Even if you believe that every human being harbors an immortal soul, the problem of responsibility remains: I cannot take credit for the fact that I do not have the soul of a psychopath. If I had truly been in Komisarjevsky’s shoes on July 23, 2007 — that is, if I had his genes and life experience and an identical brain (or soul) in an identical state — I would have acted exactly as he did. There is simply no intellectually respectable position from which to deny this. The role of luck, therefore, appears decisive.

…

On the choices we make in life:

Take a moment to think about the context in which your next decision will occur: You did not pick your parents or the time and place of your birth. You didn’t choose your gender or most of your life experiences. You had no control whatsoever over your genome or the development of your brain. And now your brain is making choices on the basis of preferences and beliefs that have been hammered into it over a lifetime — by your genes, your physical development since the moment you were conceived, and the interactions you have had with other people, events, and ideas. Where is the freedom in this? Yes, you are free to do what you want even now. But where did your desires come from?

Penn Jillette got quite a bit of attention for his book God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales:

Publishers Lunch is now announcing (via email) that Jillette just signed a deal to write a sequel:

NYT bestselling author of GOD, NO! and larger half of magic act Penn & Teller, Penn Jillette’s EVERY DAY IS AN ATHEIST HOLIDAY, a new collection of spiritual rants and humorous ravings, spanning the hidden horrors of Christmas carols, family celebrations, Fourth of July, Halloween and beyond, to Sarah Hochman at Blue Rider Press, for publication in November 2012, by Agency for the Performing Arts (World).

Just in time for when you’re buying Christmas gifts…